CENTRAL FLORIDA—BY: WEBER WAY TO WELLNESS REPORTER
The Garden Warrior Archery Program is underway for their 2026-2027 season, but first we will have a look back at the 2025-2026 season to get inspired!
Alicia Weber is a USA Archery Level 2 Instructor, fitness innovator with the “Weber Way to Wellness”, and a multi-sport coach of 29 years working with grassroots to Olympic level. Her archery fitness sports league is going on 14 years strong and this past season at least 30 athletes ages 5-16 competed in barebow category archery (without sighting devices), excelled in over 10 fitness obstacles, set records in 10 strength tests, set loads of new bests in speed and agility challenges, achieved fastest runs times in a half dozen events, learned and became educated in over 50 Florida plant and animal species, achieved baseline fitness and conditioned to earn new benchmarks in over 20 proper form exercises, and embraced goal setting and good sportsmanship in their 10 events they competed in. ALL of the above was achieved in just 26 sessions of 45 minutes OR JUST UNDER 20 HOURS!!!
Alicia personalizes her training and guides each athlete to their best performances in fitness and archery. She also helps students develop a strong mental attitude with positive thinking as she is also an Elite Mindset Coach and Motivational Speaker.
Below is a look back with select highlights from 2025-2026 Garden Warrior Archery Season where a total of 10 competitions that took place within the 20 hours (these are virtual events at each location’s training grounds). Five Teams competed this year from Orlando and Lake County, Florida to go after the 2025 Fall Championship Team Title and Spring 2026 Championship Team Title.
CHASING MVP STATUS
Archer-Athletes have the ability to compete for most archery points in the 10 scored events and the male and female with highest score at their training location will earn the MVP Award. This past season An All-Time Record was set for Most Archery Points Ever within 10 competitions with 361 points!!
The Thrill of Working with Your Team In Multiple Skills and Events
Each team has athletes with different abilities- some might be more archery-inclined, while others excel in more types of fitness events, but everyone must give it their best to contribute to their team score. As Alicia coaches everyone, it normally comes down to just a few points that separate the top teams. The kids learn that it comes down to determination in a lot of events. Age is just a number. Our youngest team with 5 year olds beat out the teams with the oldest competitors (14 -16 year olds) in fall 2025 (just an example of age just a number). The Jr. Rubies (youngest team) placed 2nd our of 5 Teams in Fall 2025. Then, in Spring 2026 the older team at the Orlando location (Red Rubies ages 9-13) won the Team Championship and it came down to just one point in archery to push out some other top teams (Shown above in video)!
Gender is also irrelevant in this program. In archery it comes down to who can be the most focused. This is truly a sport that carries over to improving academics and classroom performance. Archery attracts kids who were failing and now they are back on track and on Honor Roll just as kids who were already exceptional students – they are now skipping grades and at top of class! Some Fitness Events are dominated by females (especially events with multi-tasking), while boys dominate other fitness events.
Above is Video of one of our multi-taking fitness challenges where the female has the overall record of 11.4 seconds and two boys tie for next best behind her in 11.9 seconds.
WATCH SOLOMON DO OUR HARDEST ARCHERY CHALLENGE WITH PERFECT AIM!
Solomon is a prime example of someone who is determined and focused and he became the only student male or female this past season to complete one of the Toughest Challenges in archery that we have on an assigned target at 7 yards and no practice is allowed. They only get 4 shots and that is it.
SOLOMOM FROM TEAM WARRIORS (WINNING FALL TEAM) AND LUCA FROM TEAM RED RUBIES (WINNIG SPRING TEAM) SHARE THE STRICT FORM PULL-UP LEAGUE RECORD (3 REPS)
Solomon was on the winning team in fall 2025. Then, his team placed 3rd in Spring 2026, while the Red Rubies won in Spring 2026. The Red Rubies had been defeated for a couple of years. They lost their MVP from 2024-2025, so they all had to step up their game. They were able to keep their positive attitude and finally achieve their long-awaiting team victory after a disappointing 3rd place tam finish in the fall. Achieving fitness all-time records are 60 point bonus for teams, so both of their teams earned 60 points for sharing this pull-up record.
Kids can attempt to Achieve Fitness Benchmarks for 30 points for their Team!
Only 4 students achieved this tough fitness benchmark this season where only 2 reps were required of this “Commando Grip Flexed Hang Twister” testing strength and mobility as the knees have to touch the elbow for it to count.
7-YEAR-OLD STUDENT INVENTS NEW EXERCISE!
Kids get a leadership role in this program and can use their creativity like this 7-year-old to create new exercises or activities. They are also strong in safety rules and became referees in the events.
KIDS CAN GET THE PROGRAM PERSONALIZED TO THEM.
This past season all the kids begged for more fitness obstacles and agility challenges, so Alicia tailored her spring to their request. Above are some of the best performers ever at certain agility challenges.
KIDS DO SPORT SPECIFIC TRAINING THAT TRANSFERS OVER TO BETTER ARCHERY.
The agility obstacles ranged from 32 feet to 103 feet in length. Brendon (age 14 and above) was the second oldest student in the league this season and he set an 80-yard suicide run record with 2 perfect throws of the yard darts in their targets at 6 and 12 feet away (fastest runner and only person to get perfect score).
KIDS CAN TRY AND BEAT THEIR COACH IN ARCHERY AND SOME EVENTS FOR BONUS POINTS.
We did a wide range of sprinting challenges in the spring program per the request of the majority of students. Above is playlist of some of the sprinting events and the top performers and how the kids did compared to their coach. Cody who is mainly an elite hockey player joined a team in the spring to help with sport specific training and strength gains for hockey. It really helped him as he was picked up by an elite hockey team in Lakeland and he also started getting offers to join an Elite Junior Teams.
KIDS JOIN THE ARCHERY TO HELP WITH THEIR OTHER SPORTS.
Cody met his goals by joining Alicia’s archery program to improve his hockey. He joined program unable to do one chin-up and just a month after starting the training he did 7 strict form Chin-Ups to set the All-Time League record!!
Luca (age 10) becomes first person ever in the league to do a strict form “Truly Strict Leg Twisted Pull-up” on 5/4/26.
Solomon then came back and beat the new league record on 5/14/26 by doing 2 reps of the “Truly Strict Form Leg Twisted Pull-Up”.
COACH ALICIA WILL FOLLOW THE MOTIVATION OF THE GROUP AND CREATE A CURRICULM AROUND IT.
Solomon was highly motivated and pushed himself and competitors to try and go after fitness challenges in spring 2026. Solomon becomes first student (age 10 or Under) to do a proper from bar dip.
Speaking of exercises, this season set the most ever new marks or All Time League Records in Strength Tests that help develop strong archery.
When Alicia asked Solomon, Brendon, and Luca, “Why do they think so many records are falling with this group?” They all replied with same answer, “We love setting goals and seeing what we are capable of achieving.”
The kids understand the conditioning process and so these results you see in the list below are from first setting a reachable benchmark like 5-10 seconds for a dead hang. Then, we keep setting a new goal as benchmarks are achieved. They are also given training tips on what they can be doing outside of class to improve, so over the course of the year, they keep improving.
LEADERBOARD AND NEW LEAGUE RECORDS SET IN 2025-2026
1.) Triceps Extension Bar Hang *Franklin age 7 set a new 10 and Under record in 64 seconds. *Azaria age 9 set girls record with 41 seconds for 10 and Under. The All-Time League record was set in 2019 with 2:18 by an 8th Grade Boy and the All-Time League record for girls was set in 2019 by 6th grade girl in 60 seconds.
2.) 10 Cone Touch 1 Leg Balance Speed Reaction Drill
All Time League Records Set by Kemzie in 7.09 seconds and Brendon 7.28 seconds
3.) 30 seconds Plank Hold Followed Right Into Consecutive Pushups (no pauses allowed and once form fails – attempt over) All Time League Record set for 32 consecutive Pushups shared by Abe 7 year old and Brendon 14 year old . All Time League Record for Girls set at 6 by a 7 year old Alex.
4.) Flexed Bar Hang All Time League Record Set by Brendon at 55.4 seconds
All Time League Record Set by Alex for Girls with 17.0 seconds
Solomon set record for age 10 and Under with 48.0 seconds
5.) Australian Pull-Ups (full ROM upto 10 seconds for a rep)
All Time record is Luca with 40 reps and Azaria with 31 reps.
6.) Dead Hang
*10 AND Under records set with Franklin in 1:26 and Alex (girls) in 1:21.
Luca gets an Honorable Mention as the 2nd Best EVER in 2:10
The All Time record was set in 2018 in 2:30.
7.) Pronated Grip Pull-Ups All Time Record Set at 3 strict form reps shared by Luca and Solomon. No girls record yet.
8.) Chin-ups All Time Record Set at 7 strict form reps by 16-year-old Cody. No girls record yet.
9.) Bar Dip Record All Time Record Set at 1 Rep by Solomon. No girls record yet.
10.) Leg Crossed Strict Form Pull-Up All Time Record set by Solomon with 2 reps.
11.) Commando Grip Flexed Hang Twister All Time Record of 6 reps by Luca. No girls record yet.
Thanks for learning about the summary from a FUN mental and physical sport program that develops wide ranging skills in 20 hours. Contact Alicia at Awinningway@gmail.com to join.
END OF REPORT.